Matt Panhans @mpanhans@librem.one

The anthropologist David Graeber just died. He is one of my primary intellectual influences, and his book DEBT changed my life back in 2011: https://bookshop.org/books/debt-updated-and-expanded-the-first-5-000-years-revised/9781612194196

Some articles of his that are also really important to me:

Using our mid-20th century projections of flying cars as a jumping-off point to think about what actually happened to material progress in the last 50 years: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

On bullshit make-work that contributes to the above: https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/

I don't wanna argue with random YouTube commenters about why Facebook owning and meddling with Oculus is bad, and why being an original Kickstarter backer is relevant to that argument.

The fact of the matter is, even if they didn't sell any consumer builds of the hardware before the Facebook takeover, I personally, and literally hundreds of other early VR videogame developers, sunk a significant investment of development costs into the original two dev kits and their hardware drivers,

only to have the rug pulled out from under us as a walled garden suddenly appeared at the last moment and we were forced to upgrade our drivers and sell in their market or get out, basically?

No? myaa, come on. I'm on Linux, I paid hundreds of dollars for VR hardware, and I can't even use it because of commercial interests and spyware.

#DeleteFacebook ❓
#FacebookDeleted ✅

"Interoperability as a tool for competition regulation" by @1br0wn https://osf.io/preprints/lawarxiv/fbvxd

Really interesting and deep analysis of how interoperability may be a path to better competition in the social media space. Pairs well with Cory Doctorow's recent book touching similar themes: https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

The #GAFAM game plan

1. Build a garden
2. Lure people into the garden
3. Imprison the people inside by building a wall around the garden
4. Gradually destroy the garden and build a shopping mall in its place 🤑

Capitalism: 1
People: 0

You know how the Curse of the Monkey's paw works: a cursed object grants all of your wishes, but in the worst way possible: "be careful what you wish for."

That's what we're living through with Big Tech right now.

I'm all for regulating Big Tech, but not all regulation is created equal. Some regulation can dampen the power of Big Tech, while other regulation can make it permanent, even creating powerful stakeholders for monopolies within government.

1/

Vote!

Making this video took me pretty long but I wanted to correctly underline how great and unique the design of this smartphone is :

https://puri.sm/posts/the-design-behind-a-modular-and-secure-mobile-phone/

Action precedes motivation, procrastination precedes frustration.

My recipe to getting shit done is breaking down tasks into smaller and smaller chunks, until they seem almost too trivial to accomplish. Take baby steps into the right direction instead of going for the big leaps! Persist and you will eventually get there. Believe in yourself!

Friendica is a free open source federated social network with a Facebook-style interface, and part of the Fediverse. You can follow the official blog at:

➡️ @news

The official site is at https://friendi.ca/

Some good up-to-date instances include https://libranet.de and https://squeet.me

Installation guide for self-hosting: https://friendi.ca/resources/installation/

The @fedilab app is compatible with Friendica accounts.

#Friendica #Fediverse #ActivityPub #Facebook #Alternatives #FOSS #FLOSS

#DeleteFacebook Entry 13

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346

I have some great news about Boston Public Schools and free software. You may know that my Co-op has been hosting some Boston Public School courses over the summer using free software.
Assessments of student progress shows that the teachers that stuck with BBB had better assessment scores for their students!! Especially the Math teachers. Scores were SIGNIFICANTLY higher by about 10-15 percentage points and it is believed that is because BBB allowed for student engagement more than Zoom did.

#DeleteFacebook Entry 11

Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-zuckerberg-what-if-trump-disputes-election-results

What's a good alternative to Google Forms?

Starting a new organisation called "Members For Cooperation Between Cooperatives".

The name explains it pretty well. The idea is especially to organise rank-and-file members of big and old consumer cooperatives to advocate for them to cooperate more with new, small worker cooperatives.

If you are interested in joining (it's free!) let me know :)